The effect of scientific inquiry method on development of students metacognition knowledge in sciences curriculum

Scientific inquiry teaching method can solve the problems of traditional teaching method and make the students to explore, think and solve the problem. Ttherefore, this study aimed to examine the effect of scientific inquiry on development of students metacognition knowledge in sciences curriculum in the fourth grad in elementary schools.

Research method in this study was quasi-experiment with pretest–posttest based on two control and experiment groups. Statistical population included elementary fourth grade students in Mashhad, that 44 of them were selected by cluster sampling method. Research tool for collecting data was meta cognition knowledge Questionnaire with Chronbach's Alpha for pretest %69 and for posttest %79.

Collected data have been analyzed by using descriptive statistical and one-way and multivariate covariance. Findings showed that there were not differences between average of pretest in two control and experiment groups. But in posttest, the average of experiment group was more than that of control group and by controlling the pretest, no significant difference was observed between metacognitive knowledge among two experiment and control groups (p<0/001).

The results showed that the scientific inquiry method had effected in general on increasing students metacognition knowledge and also had increased its component including: person knowledge, task knowledge and strategy knowledge (p<0/001).